


I think it's dark and it looks like it's rain, you said

by ghostface (hyperempathie)



Category: South Park
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:22:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26882842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyperempathie/pseuds/ghostface
Summary: or: Pete waxes poetic about his crush. Michael does something about it.
Relationships: Michael/Pete (South Park), Michael/Pete Thelman
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	I think it's dark and it looks like it's rain, you said

He places a cigarette between his lips as his other hand rifles through the pockets of his coat, looking for a lighter. Pete met Michael on his first day of school, and he’s fairly certain they were each other’s first real friend. Soon enough, they were sitting together at lunch and skipping P.E. to smoke behind the school. Firkle and Henrietta were there too, they all stayed close and closed off in their safe little group, but it was different with Michael. The two of them were rarely apart, even when their other two companions couldn’t make it. Michael was a permanent fixture in Pete’s shitty little trailer house, and Pete was the same in Michael’s room. Now, seventeen and thrust headfirst into the most aggressive roadblock of his short life, _emotions_ , Pete finds himself nervously chewing on the filter of his cig as he stands outside his best friend’s house.

The sun is setting, it’s around 6PM and the sky is a gloomy shade of grey and purple, threatening the onset of rain. Michael always brings an umbrella, Pete thinks, so they could just share one. And there it is again, that nervousness that seems to erupt on the surface of his skin when he thinks about standing close to his friend.

At first, he wondered if it was a familial type of affection, or maybe something he felt about all three of his friends, but when Henrietta dyed his hair on what could easily be interpreted as the most romantic of all goth dates, the atmosphere was as sterile as it was when he had his tonsils taken out in the 4th grade. No, this was something specific to Michael, and the way it felt to stand close to him. Then, for a while, he wondered if this was his brain trying to clue him in on the fact that he might be into guys by projecting these viscerally romantic feelings towards the closest male. He’d have an easier time coping, he thinks, with being gay, if he wasn’t being gay _at_ Michael. But his life was never simple, he laments with all the wariness someone wearing Emily the Strange socks could muster.

Michael’s bedroom light turns off. Then, he hears the muffled, rhythmic thumps indicative of Docs on wood stairs, and the door slowly creaks open, and for a second Pete prays to any god or devil that his friend will look entirely uninteresting and unattractive. Alas, Michael walks out, disheveled hair in his eyes, and ruins any potential of this outing being anything but _outing_ for Pete. Each time they meet up, it seems, he grows more flustered and more careless. Tonight, he thinks, he might just burst, or the awful, repulsive, entirely _uncool_ desire to sit obscenely close to his friend might eat him alive. Michael casually reaches into Pete’s jacket pocket to pull out a black lighter and light his clove cigarette. For a moment, while Michael stands still, brow furrowed as he focuses on lighting up, illuminated by street lights and the dying sun, Pete can smell his hairspray from how close they’re standing. _Goddammit_.

They walk to his car as if nothing is going on, roll the windows down so it doesn’t get too stuffy from the smoke, and Pete exhales deep as the engine comes to life. This is normal. Things are normal. He reaches a hand out to mess with the radio, puts on the first Siouxsie album that comes up and then brings his hand up to inspect his chipped black nail polish.

Driving around like that, smoking and listening to music, occasionally talking, has become a tradition for them. They would do it every day if gas was cheap. The houses fly by the passenger’s side window like a film reel, lower class, wannabe-suburbia blurring together into one pastiche of two story, three bedroom, mindnumbingly white Americana. It gets darker, and rain begins to lightly tap on the glass of the windows. On the outskirts of South Park, where the houses are further apart and usually empty, the horizon becomes clearer. It’s just miles of road ahead, miles of empty before they enter the next town over. That liminal space seems to beckon Michael just as much as it does Pete, because soon enough, he’s pulling over on the side of the road. Pete thinks for a moment, as the car slows to a halt, that if he were with anyone else, he would probably be prepared to be murdered and stuffed into the trunk. The thought makes him break out in a small, amused smile. Michael turns to look at him and gives a curious quirk of the lips in return.

“What?” he says, voice deep and nasally in the way that makes Pete’s heartbeat accelerate.

“Nothing,” the boy tells him, and then, “I was just thinking. If I was alone in a car with any other guy and he pulled over on the side of the road, on the edge of town, I’d probably book it.”

Michael pauses for a second, then begins to laugh, all breathy like he’s trying to force himself to stay quiet. It’s kind of cute. He composes himself quickly, but there’s this comfortable smile playing on his features. He leans back in his seat as he pops the door open ever so slightly and places one of his legs outside, signaling for Pete to undo his seatbelt and begin to open the door on his side.

“I hope, for your sake and mine, you’re not going into strangers’ cars for joyrides,” Michael says, “I think we have a really good thing going here.”

Pete walks right out as he feels his face heat up, embarrassment already making his throat tight. _We?_ He means all of them, he means their little tradition of driving around, he means an entirely normal way of spending an evening with a good friend of the same sex with no homoeroticism there to taint the platonic nature of the ordeal. Right? Pete coughs nervously, pulls out another cigarette as his nerves begin to feel thin and frail. Like watching a pair of nylons tear as you pull them up.

Michael leans against the hood of his car. How natural he seems there, head tilted up and eyes looking at the now-dark sky, just makes it all the more obvious to Pete how significant it all feels. And where there’s significance, there’s anxiety. So, gracelessly, Pete walks over and stands next to him, acutely aware of the distance he puts between them. It’s all he can do, magnetized, the moth trailing to the flickering flame of the candle. He leans on the hood as well, inhales smoke and stares at the few stars that are out. A calm seems to fall over them like a wave, gently but completely, just the gentle tap of raindrops and a few crickets, and the occasional sound of Pete’s cigarette burning when he takes a drag. It’s a microcosm of his favorite thing about being friends with Michael. But, almost as soon as he begins to relax, the quiet disappears, because Michael clears his throat and sends Pete’s heart flying into the stratosphere:

“I was thinking,” he begins, and it cuts right through Pete, “about something,” but he hears a shift that makes his fear response fall silent and his head turn to look at his taller friend, a sort of uncertainty that Michael rarely shows. It’s even more obvious when he stops speaking, frowns and takes a deep breath, as if he’s considering what to say next. That uncertainty makes Pete want to be brave.

“Yeah?” Pete prompts. He edges closer to his friend ever so slightly, turns towards him, and suddenly it all feels so vulnerable. The façade of casual friendship begins to feel flimsy and feeble, like it could crumble at their feet at any moment, like it will.

“Yeah, and I was wondering,” and he pauses again, “if you were thinking about it too.”

Pete thinks about sitting at the driver’s seat at a cliff and hitting the gas, he thinks about all the reasons he should stay quiet, go home, don’t _ruin_ a good thing.

“I,” he begins, voice small, almost a whisper. As he’s letting all the excuses and escape routes fly through his mind, the only thing he says is, “yeah.”

As soon as he says it, regret and shame overtakes him. Not because it’s not true, but because now the safety’s off. Now everything can hurt him, now he’s really scared. And Michael is there, turning towards him with those tired eyes, looking right at him. He almost wishes he would kill him and stuff him in his trunk instead of looking at him, seeing the heat across his cheeks and all the way to his ears, the tremors in his hands. His thoughts are interrupted as the album switches to a newer one, the change in volume making him jump a little. Michael gives a smile.

“Are we on the same page here?” he asks. Pete’s mouth feels dry, so he just nods and rests his hand on the hood, close to where Michael’s is resting. Michael notices the initiative, no matter how minor, because he knows Pete. He knows what every nervous cough or tilt of the head means, so he grabs Pete’s small hand in his, threading their fingers together. Then, he pauses, looks at him for a second before saying, “You know, you’re free to run for the hills if this is freaking you out. Or, I could… drive you home, if you don’t wanna stay, or if you—“

Pete cuts him off.

“No, I—this is good. We’re good. We can stay here,” and he squeezes his hand gently. And it’s there, in seeing that very same doubt that was festering inside of him for months come out of Michael, that he lets the kodachrome rip apart. He tosses the butt of his cigarette onto the wet concrete and puts a hand on Michael’s arm, prompting him to turn so they’re facing each other entirely now. And he stifles the shame inside him as he finally lets himself _look_ without hiding it. He tries to memorize the way Michael’s eyeliner blends into his dark circles, the way his dark eyes feel endless and the way his coat feels under his fingers as he squeezes his bicep and holds him there. (Holds them there.)

Michael comes closer, wraps an arm around Pete’s shoulder as if to cocoon him, and presses their foreheads together as he closes his eyes. Pete looks down at how their knees are touching, how they’re half sitting on the hood of the car, and feels himself begin to slide down a bit. So they stand up, letting go of each other for a moment before Pete’s arms come up to circle around Michael’s neck. Michael wraps around him too, holds him close, and it feels like no one in the world has ever hugged like this before. All his senses are acutely aware of the warm body pressed flush against him. It’s overwhelming in the way being underwater is. He can’t even feel the rain anymore. Michael rocks them side to side slowly to the melody of _Plainsong,_ making Pete smile a little at how absurdly unremarkable it all must seem to anyone else. He rubs the back of Michael’s neck gently, then threads his fingers into messy curls, undoubtedly fucking his hair up with little to no remorse. Michael presses his face into Pete’s hair in response.

Pete thinks for a moment how badly he wants to press his lips to the crook of Michael’s neck, or to his jawline, or his cheek, or nose, or lips. He separates them once again and tilts his head to look up at him, prompting Michael to crane his neck down ever so slightly (bad posture made worse), until their faces are close again. He tilts his head a little like he’s seen in the movies, closes his eyes, and lets Michael press their lips together. It feels surreal, and he’s not quite certain of how he should be doing it. His confidant is there, though, to coax gentle movement out of him, stroking his cheek and kissing him slowly and languidly. The rain becomes louder, like white noise, and soaks through their coats. When they separate, Pete looks at the way the water makes black kohl smear and run on Michael’s under eye.

When they return to the car, where The Cure is much louder, and the rain much quieter, Pete feels another bout of doubt threaten to bubble up inside him, fear that perhaps what just happened would be an isolated incident or that he’d somehow misunderstood the entire arrangement. Michael grabs his hand, strokes the joints of his knuckle with his thumb, and leans in to give him a peck on the lips.

“So, are we…,” Pete says, and lets the question trail off with a residual uncertainty that he can’t seem to shake.

“Dating?” Michael asks, “Yeah, if you want to,” as if they didn’t just spend 20 minutes indulging in conformist displays of affection on the side of the road.

“Yeah,” he tells him, “I want to.”

On their drive home, Pete wishes they could stay there forever, on that edge of town, inside Michael’s car, where the space between them is minimal. He looks at Michael, illuminated by street lights, magnetic, and lets him quell his anxieties more and more each time he grabs his hand as they wait at a red light.


End file.
